Being self conscious (I know from experience) is a product of a belief system that says "I need validation and love through others". Therefore, you are always worried what others think of you and you fear rejection and will do anything to try to suppress who you truly are in order to gain love from other people. That's basically the crux of being self conscious which is another term for "shame" and even the threads of co-dependency. It stems from insecurity and feelings of low self worth and fear that life is a scary place.

So, when you can start to see the habitual nature of those thought patterns as merely beliefs you've taken on, in your life, you are stepping out of the story of the "shameful one" and into a space of Being where you will realize that you have a choice as to whether or not indulge in that same old story, or start to re-train your vibration and neural pathways with a new story, based in allowing, self love, acceptance and joy.

Awareness is not in opposition to being self conscious. Awareness is merely the empty canvas or space in which creation happens. Think of it as the light in which all darkness seems to appear. If the room is dark and you can't find your keys. You don't try to 'turn off the darkness'. Instead, you turn on the Light which was really always there all along. And that's essentially what it is. Light is always ever present. But our beliefs that we are something other than light are what keep us trapped in darkness.

What a lovely personal comment, E2B. There is a resonant authority in the words of someone who has "Been there, done that."

Awareness is merely the empty canvas or space in which creation happens

Indeed!!! And also, Nyseto, it is that canvas which absorbed, adopted and reflects the story of "there is something lacking in me," originally.

But more to your question, if the "self" that you are "conscious" of is improved by wearing hipper clothes, taking hipper vacations, having a cooler car, then absolutely yes, Awareness is, if not "the opposite" of being self conscious, it is certainly very different. Awareness is, oddly, not "personal" at all in its essence. And "self conscious" is very deeply and uniquely personal. Pure Awareness is Being. Residing in Being, Self-Realization is profoundly still, nonlocal and infinite. Other "levels" of personal psychological self-awareness can be revealed as a by-product of awakening, including the splendid comment by E2B.

Andy

A person is not a thing or a process, but an opening through which the universe manifests. - Martin Heidegger
There is not past, no future; everything flows in an eternal present. - James Joyce